


a beautiful echo of death

by majesdane



Series: we tell our stories differently [3]
Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character Death, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27035017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: For five years you are safe and happy and you forget the world can be cruel.| A study of Sarah Alder.
Series: we tell our stories differently [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919194
Comments: 21
Kudos: 38





	a beautiful echo of death

you are too nostalgic, you want memory to secure you, console you.  
— _white oleander_ , janet fitch

* * *

You are twelve years old and boarding a ship for the new world.

The _Centurion_ it's called, and it's the grandest ship you've ever seen.

It's just you and your sister — your parents have been captured. Killed. They told you to run, but you didn't; you couldn't, you didn't want to. Staring at them, pinned to the floor, boots on their backs, Doglock pistols pointed at their heads. They screamed at you and you didn't move, not until your sister grabbed your arm and yanked you out the door, to the inky blackness of the night and waiting woods, telling you to _go, go, go, don't look back, don't stop, keep running, go_.

Both of you ran until your lungs burned — worse than that time she was angry with you and tricked you into holding a discord Seed for so long you coughed up blood. Only this time your parents aren't here to Fix you and make you tea afterwards.

They'll never be there like that again. They'll never be anywhere ever again.

You collapse to the ground at last, disoriented and exhausted, your muscles aching. 

Your sister wraps you up into a tight hug and you think she's crying, but a part of you is afraid to look. Because if she's crying, then you know you'll start crying too, and you feel so _tired_ , you just want to close your eyes and sleep for a hundred years. You curl up against the base of a looming oak tree, the moss beneath cool and soft. 

In the morning when you wake, it's bright and sunny and the forest is alive with the chirp of birds, and for a moment you forget where you are, what happened the night before. But then the acrid scent of smoke and flames — still clinging to your clothes, your hair — comes back to you and you scramble to your feet, making it only a yard or so before throwing up. 

_Sarah_ , your sister says, and she looks as sick as you feel. 

Her clothes are muddy and torn, her hair tumbling messily from her usually neat braid. Her eyes are red and swollen. She doesn't look like she slept at all, and you wonder if she stayed up all night watching over you.

You feel a swell of gratitude and affection and run to her, falling into her arms.

 _It's just us now_ , she says, and the realization feels like being dunked in ice water.

 _I'll protect you_ , she says, kissing your forehead. _Nothing bad will happen to you ever again. I promise._

She sounds sad, but hardened and determined, too.

And you really do believe her.

*

On board, you stay mostly below deck.

You spend two weeks learning how to not retch every time the boat crests over a wave, your stomach dipping and rising with the bow. You stay quiet, because your sister tells you to — she only speaks to you in low whispers, casting sidelong glances at your cabin-mates, the lot of you huddled and stinking, fighting for room to sleep in the hard beds with their dingy straw-stuffed mats and thread-worn blankets.

There's finer cabins above, but neither of you have any more than a few stolen coins that you've sewn into your bodices for safekeeping. Your sister had to compel a spot for both of you on board; it was risky to do such Work out in the open, in the middle of a bustling shipyard, but what choice was there? It was either that or the rope — or the stake or the blade or whatever other horror could be imagined.

You miss your parents. You miss sneaking into their bed at night and curling up between them. They never pushed you away and said you were getting too old to be acting like a child. Your mother would stroke your hair until you fell asleep. Your father would kiss your cheek, his beard tickling your skin. They always smelled like autumn, like spiced apples. Sometimes when you can't sleep, the rocking of the boat keeping you up and your empty belly grumbling — there's stale bread and water and not much else, not for poor passengers like you — you close your eyes and imagine you're there with them.

Your sister says to be thankful. _Could be back home, running from the Camarilla_ , she says. 

She speaks to you in Méníshè, her mouth pressed right against your ear as you cradle up in one of the bunks together. 

She's eight years older than you. She's always been bold and brave, unafraid to act out or speak her mind. It's one of the reasons you've always admired her so much — though you'd never tell her that; she'd never let you live it down. But now she's cautious. Small and timid, like a mouse. She shushes you constantly, hums a Seed to help lull you to sleep.

*

Essex County isn't very different from many towns you've been to before — and you've been to a lot.

It's sparse and woodsy and it's _charming_ , even if the townsfolk do look at you suspiciously when you climb out of the boat, looking thin and ragged after nearly four months of difficult travel. But they look like that at _everyone_ new, it seems, and they're welcoming enough after they find out you and your sister are traveling by yourselves.

 _You poor girls_ , they say. 

When they ask what happened to your parents, you tell them it was the Fever, and they nod sympathetically and offer you scraps of food. It's only a day later that your sister finds employment working as a seamstress and secures a small room above a tavern by the docks. A part of you wonders if she compelled them — and you wonder if you _should_ wonder. You're witches, after all. It's in your nature to do Work. 

_We shouldn't use our Work on them_ , your parents always taught you. _Not unless it's for survival. And maybe not even then; there's a balance to this world. An invisible scale we must always be mindful of. The Goddess blessed us with our Songs. We're obliged to protect these gifts._

The word for _love_ in your language means _Song_ — and that's how you know how important they must be, even as a child.

There's not much to do, so you end up helping out downstairs in the tavern. It's an accident at first, borne out of boredom, but the owners take a liking to you and travelers always remark at your dark hair and wide seafoam eyes. Your parents always said you were a charmer, that it never took Seeds to get you anything you wanted.

*

For five years you are safe and happy and you forget the world can be cruel.

You forget your old home — did you ever really have one, moving from place to place all the time? — and the smoke and shouting. You make friends and you go to church and pretend to be pious. It starts out like a game, but soon you realize you've become far too good at it. You forget what it's like to be part of a clan. You nearly forget you're a witch sometimes, too, and when you realize this you feel terribly ashamed. 

Even still, you always take great care to hide the witch mark on your thigh, just above the knee. At nights when the moon is high and the wind is sweet with the smell of incoming rain, you walk through the woods and practice your Seeds. Your sister is always reminding you not to forget how powerful you are, but you wonder how it's possible to be so powerful and always be the prey, never the hunter.

She frowns and scolds you when you bring it up. _Remember what our parents said. We can't abuse our gifts._

But it doesn't _feel_ like abuse to you. It _feels_ like it should be natural. It's stupid to always be in hiding, to believe you should die rather than protect yourself. If witches only fought back — 

You never let yourself think beyond that. That road is dark and treacherous. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, as sharp and unforgiving as the blood on your tongue when tall men burst into your parents' house and split your lip open with the butt of their pistol.

It's a reckless line of thinking anyway. You and your sister are strong. You come from ancient bloodlines. But you're young and outnumbered and, although it makes you feel pathetic and small, it's easier to just put your head down and stay quiet and pretend you're just another unremarkable girl. 

_One day_ , your sister says, and you almost believe her. _One day we'll go somewhere safe._

*

You are eighteen years old and not in love, though you like the way boys look at you. You look back at them with parallel interest. You are eighteen, and a witch coming in flush with the full bloom of her prowess, and you _want_ to look and be looked at. You want to feel the slide of their tongue against yours, the firm grip of their hands on your waist.

(Girls sometimes, too, but this isn't a world where that's safe to think about, let alone begin to act on; perhaps _before_ , but not _now_ , and it's times like this that you find yourself longing for your own community, the one you shucked off the day you boarded the _Centurion_.)

You tamp this bitterness down because there is no point in it; things are as they are. The Camarilla are a world away, you and your sister have tucked yourself up tightly in this new life, and no one and nothing can touch you. To want more would be selfish — or so you tell yourself. You refuse to let resentment fester; you dig it up at the roots. There is no wanting _more_ — not for you, not for a witch. 

_I miss our old life_ , you tell your sister sometimes.

She brushes you off with a patient smile. _You were hardly older than a foundling, then._

But you remember your clan, vaguely, and the acceptance that came with it. Pleasure — love and lust and everything in between — was not taboo. It was not spoken of in whispers, with nervous, darting looks, something to ashamedly beg for forgiveness for every Sunday. Witches took their power from it; it made them strong and beautiful. You remember — or think you do — talk of Beltane, of the feasts and the Reel.

You picture it in your mind and you're filled with nostalgia for something you have never even experienced.

There is a boy.

Always a boy, isn't there? Always a lover, waiting in the wings.

But this story is different, because in this story he doesn't seduce you. _You_ seduce _him_ , pressing him down into the giving but prickly pile of hay in the loft of his family's barn, and straddling him until you're spent. It's only when his gaze drops down to your bare thigh, when his eyes narrow and he asks _What's that?_ and you realize you've put yourself in danger.

 _It's nothing_ , you say, the air flexing as your words worm your way into his ear, burying themselves deep enough so he forgets he ever saw anything at all. His eyes gloss over with Work and sated desire and you kiss him and fix your clothes, ignoring the way your heart bangs in your chest with fear.

You're careful, after that.

But you've forgotten the way blood tastes in your mouth.

And you believe you are safe.

*

Your sister is twenty-six and dead.

It's the strange, morbid little details you'll remember later, the horrible miniscule points of memory that stick with you, bone-deep. The purple bruises on her neck from the rope, her mouth and fingertips tinged blue to match. The tear streaks on her dirty face. The tiny droplets of blood on her dress, from the spray when they hit her across the face. To silence her, to beat her down into submission — one more time on her way to the gallows.

And your mouth is stuffed with cotton and iron and it's hard to breathe and _oh, Goddess_ , you forgot what it was like to truly _fear_ , to see death so real and present. You cry and beg but no one listens — because they never will, not unless you make them. And then they unlock your collar and you Sing so hard it _hurts_ , and you don't stop, not even then, not until you've called down a storm greater than any single witch should be able to do.

They fear you _then_ , the wind whipping and rain droplets as thick and cold as hail, the sky crackling with midnight-black lightning. And for a single moment you feel a rush of joy and pride, you think _I was right_ , because what can compare to a witch's power?

You don't know then, the real cost.

You can't even imagine.

They dress you in fine clothes. Proper military garb, all spit-shined boots and polished gold buttons. It's the nicest clothing you've ever worn and you look strong, even if inside you're still waiting for them to call your bluff — 

— you'll never stop thinking about that, the noose you slipped yourself free from — 

— but you stand with your back ramrod straight, shoulders thrown back, hands folded behind you. And while they still look at you with suspicion, there's a tiny bit of respect visible now too. Because you're not a girl now, not a witch — you're a soldier. You're the frontispiece of the Massachusetts Bay Militia, paraded around and all dressed up like a champion war horse, ready to be driven into battle.

The Salem Accord is placed in front of you and you sign it with big swooping letters.

There _is_ pride in you, though perhaps there shouldn't be. Perhaps, you think, your parents and sister were right. _Song_ means _love_ , but you didn't Sing out of love, only out of fear for your own mortality. It's a selfish, cowardly thing, to have bargained away such a precious gift. 

And you feel it, too, in the dark gazes from other witches. You can see it in their eyes, the resentment. The judgement.

_I've made a place for us!_

You want to shout it everywhere. You don't want to be seen as Goddess-blessed, only beloved by the community you've ached for all these years.

_I have made us safe!_

The truth is, though, you were only saving yourself.

*

You are forty years old and the General of the United States Army.

You've been forty for a long time.

 _Centurion_ is the name of the ship that brought you to the shores of Essex County. How fitting, then, that you have led for over a hundred years now. Everything is ironic enough, you realize, given enough time, a wide enough scope. Everything — 

Even death. Even sacrifice. 

Because the Camarilla are dead and you are still standing, but perhaps not for long. You've used up all your lives, it seems, and now you need to beg for more. You're willing to bargain away your very soul — ironic, _ironic_ — just to make sure the Accord is kept. All the old Seeds to preserve your life up until now have been Sung. No Work will do except for what the Chippewa have to offer, and they guard it more closely than you ever guarded your own Seeds.

But everyone wants to carve out a place for themselves, so when you offer them the Cession, they take it, albeit grudgingly, and teach you and your Biddies everything you need to know.

It's what they _don't_ tell you that horrifies you, later.

You are forty years old, four times over, but you're still just that eighteen year old girl, weeping and begging at the gallows.

You are still Faust, always.

*

_Three hundred years ago_ , they say, with reverence, because they don't realize that you've forgotten nearly all of it now.

You can't remember your sister's face or the way your mother smiled. You don't know what it felt like, to have your father sweep you up into his arms and carry you on his shoulders. The smoke and fire you remember now is from months ago instead of centuries — a burning building, yet another attack from the Spree.

There's always a revolutionary, isn't there? Some new attempt to wrest power from the status quo.

It matters little who or where or why. The reasons change, but the _feeling_ does not. The desire to remake the world into something greater than it is. You felt that way once, too — and, Goddess, did you ever.

Three hundred years, but little changes. Only the names and faces. One president rolls into another. A four star Bellweather retires or is superseded by another High Atlantic and it happens all again, every time, twenty years later. Before the Spree, it was the Proxy Wars — and wars before that and hundreds of power struggles and petty squabbles.

When you called down the storm, it was not for _them_ , for civilians, only for _you_ , but you've grown accustomed to them, their pathetic dramas, just as any horse grows used to the bit that it once chafed at.

Besides, you console yourself — and excuses are the only consolation stronger than whiskey — who else would lead? Who else was willing to stand up for witches then? Who would do it now? The Spree and their ilk only want to sow chaos. They want freedom only because they don't understand its cost.

You didn't once, either.

Not even now.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to [vuvalinis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vuvalinis/) for looking this over.


End file.
